First post of the new year

First of all, the obligatory Happy New Year to all. Here's to a 2009 filled with happiness, amusing adventures and good books. And a nice variety of tea and tasty food. That certainly wouldn't go amiss.

Speaking of books, you know that trend that's become at least marginally popular in the past few years, where people resolve to read x-number of books in x-year? Usually it's 100 because 100 is an impressive-sounding number? Yeah, that. Well, seeing as my pursuit of a liberal arts degree, amongst other things (like going to Japan), has done some hardcore damage to my reading habits, I've decided to do something similar. Except, I'm taking all 300 and 400-level classes, two of which are literary and one of which is philosophical (the third is third-year Japanese), so 100 books might actually be unreasonable.

So, I am going to read 50 books in 2009. Books for classes don't count - it's gotta be all for my own benefit here.

I'll keep you guys posted on my progress, mostly to keep track and partially to subtly nudge people towards good stuff. Since I'm also going to start up my media blog soon (I've only been thinking about it since July), the really good ones will get proper reviews and recommendations there. Keep an eye out for that - believe it or not, I've actually got pretty varied taste in books and music and might be able to hook you up with something you never would have noticed before. There will probably be a fair amount of world music because you really can't go wrong with adding some diversity to your music library.

Or, you know, your bookcase, since I'll be recommending books, too.